Coastin'

February 12, 2007

As we explore more of northern Italy, we find more places that rekindle our admiration of this country. This past weekend, we went to Genova, which is on the Mediterranean Sea. Our friend Catherine invited us to come to her indoor track meet there on saturday night and we decided to make a weekend of it and check out the area. Genova is a hilly city with lots of the colored buildings like in Como. It has a big port that was fun to walk around and have dinner right on the water. We wandered around, saw Christopher Columbus's house (he was from there) and enjoyed seeing the ocean and all the unbelievably gorgeous yachts and sailboats.

Catherine's track meet was way behind schedule, so when we arrived, we got to witness a strange event of speed-walking, which is just hard to watch because you want to shout at them and say, "You know if you pick up your feet more, you could go faster????" We also got to see pole vaulting, high jump, shot put, and the 60 meter sprint before we got to Catherine's 800 event. She didn't do great, but it was so fun to watch and cheer her on.
So far in Italy, we've been to this track meet and 3 pro hockey games, which we actually enjoy. Of course soccer here is so popular, so much so that all the stadiums this week were empty because of a riot down in sicily at game where someone was killed and they banned all fans from attending games.

The day after, we took a train a little east to a small town called Nervi, which is right on the ocean, up from the Cinque Terre. There is a long walkway right along the water and it was so beautiful to watch the palm trees, water and huge rocks. The town was so tropical with hills in the background and the ocean below (and it was about 60 degrees in the sun). Orange and Lemon trees were everywhere (we picked an orange, it was not good). We ate lunch in a park filled with tropical plants and watched kids play soccer. I think it was the most naturally beautiful place I've been in Europe and we were happy to find it.

In other news, I have been offered a contract with the dance company i've been dancing with and will be performing with them for 2 weeks in March and April. I start working for them the last week of February and I am looking forward to learning their stuff.